Article Figures & Data
Figures
- FIGURE 1.
Example cardiac perfusion scans from 2 patients. (A) Scan from an 86-y-old woman with reversible apical defect. Coronary angiogram revealed a 90% stenosis of left anterior descending artery. (B) Scan from a 50-y-old woman demonstrating fixed apical defect. Gated images demonstrated normal wall motion and thickening. Subsequent clinical workup was negative for CAD.
- FIGURE 2.
Mosaic plot demonstrating presence of apical artifacts against amount of soft tissues overlying chest wall. Both axes are scaled by fraction of individuals, compared with total number within each group. Amount of tissue ranges from minimal or none (0), to very little (A), to a very large amount (E).
- FIGURE 3.
Cardiac perfusion examination demonstrating artifactual apical defects, with standard reconstruction (A) and one with decreased iterative reconstruction (B). Both stress and rest images were acquired, with stress images located along upper rows. These images are attenuation-corrected. Arrows highlight area of apical defect improvement after adjusted reconstruction.
Tables
Total no. of… n Angiography-proven CAD before examination Elevated risk of acute coronary syndrome (>10% at 10 y) Patients 534 48 58 Men 309 31 14 Women 225 17 44 Apical defects 96 25 35 True apical defects 30 14 0 Artifactual apical defects 66 11 35 - TABLE 2
Summary of Results Comparing Presence of Apical Artifacts with Clinical Correlates
Clinical correlates against presence of apical artifacts Association and Pearson χ2 value P value, Fisher exact test Female sex Positive, 32.7 P < 0.001 Degree of overlying soft-tissues Positive, 19.5 P < 0.002 Presence of breast cleavage Positive, 7.15 P < 0.008 Angiography-confirmed CAD Negative, 6.88 P < 0.02 Elevated cardiac risk (>10% at 10 y) Negative, 14.6 P < 0.0001 Observer 1 Observer 2 Normal Artifact Normal 11 0 Artifact 14 25 Improved Unchanged Worse Normal 7 18 0 Artifact 17 9 0
